


A Work in Wine

by Regarklipop



Category: Elementary (TV), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Multi, This has a plot, wtf cross-over
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regarklipop/pseuds/Regarklipop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the four most powerful men in New York come to the NYPD over the kidnapping of their art student lover, Holmes and Watson are put on the case, setting them all on the trail of a slippery serial killer with an affinity for Chianti.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chianti

**Author's Note:**

  * For [autopsyofwebs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/autopsyofwebs/gifts).



> YUELEI I LOVE YOU. I'm sooo sorry that this is so much longer than we agreed upon but I have absolutely no capacity to write short things (I'm trash) help meeee (MAYBE CONSIDER THIS LIKE, A FOUR DAYS OF CHRISTMAS THING?!!?!?!?). I love you soso much I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!
> 
> I REALLY HOPE YOU LIKE THIS *SMOOCHES*

“We were at a dead end and this kind of fell into our laps,” Bell’s got Sherlock and Joan in a secluded room in the police station, carefully going over the details of the new case as Gregson speaks with their new clients.

“It's fine, what's the case?” Joan's flipping through the folder that the NYPD have provided them, a case that Sherlock had been annoyed that he hadn't been asked to consult on. She purses her lips at the gory pictures of people who have been systematically mutilated, but pays careful attention to Bell’s summary of the case.

“A few months ago we got a case involving a man being kidnapped, tortured, before his body left out in the open in a park in the Bronx. We thought it was open close. Everyone thought it was pretty obvious that the guy’s brother had done it. Then we got another case two months later, same MO, except it was a woman. She was left out on the other side of Manhattan, considering jurisdictions I’m sure you can only imagine how long it took us to get our shit together. In that time, the killer leaves another body, same bodily contusions and everything, in Hell’s Kitchen Park. We thought we caught the guy, only two weeks ago someone else goes missing, the body turns up, and now we’ve got another guy gone missing.”

“So how do you know it’s the same person without seeing the body?” Sherlock’s already on his phone, leaving Joan to ask pertinent questions.

“The serial killer’s a real romantic type, likes to wine and dine victims before he kidnaps them. They leave a nice bottle of chianti splashed all over the kidnapping scene like some Hannibal Lector freak,” 

“So we know all about the crime, what’s got you so worked up about this one in particular?” Bell flashes Joan a small grin.

“It’s more the people involved that have me concerned. Four of the richest and most powerful men in New York are breathing down the back of our necks to find their best friend,”

“Lover,” Sherlock is still tapping away, but his comment makes Bell and Joan blink.

“I assume you’re talking about the kidnap of one Zayn Malik, two days ago? He’s their lover. I can’t think of many friends who would invite someone to live with them in their forty million dollar flat in the upper east side. Unless you had particularly good friends,” Bell and Joan share a look, waiting for Sherlock to continue.

“Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that the NYPD would have managed to get a case so turned around that they thought they’d caught the right man twice and still hadn’t thought to make a call to me,” Sherlock’s off his phone now, looking carefully at Bell.

“Now then, I already know all about the case, The reason why their personal security aren’t dealing with this is because of concerns over an inside job, and the FBI aren’t dealing with this because of concerns over social propriety. So, why have they decided to cooperate with a police force who have twice before managed to give the wrong answer to the question?”

“They’ve come to us because they’d heard about you and Joan and your track record with the force, as well as us having more information than anyone else they could have turned to. So, two of them are at their apartment in the Upper East Side, and two of them are here. The Captain told me to explicitly tell you not to piss them off, and that he trusts that their relationship will remain entirely secret during the case,” Sherlock frowns.

“Unless it affects the case?” Bell is already shaking his head.

“If it affects the case, then it’s to be kept on the down low. I already know you don’t care that you’re solving a case with five young men in a relationship together, so don’t blow it; otherwise you’ll get the media involved,” 

“These young men do realise that most of the media have already figured out that the only reason why a model, a music sensation, a footie star, a world famous guitar player, and a previously starving artist would live together is if they were having sexual relations or had feelings beyond the mere physical fulfillment of bodily urges?”

“Sherlock,” Joan’s voice cuts through the look that Bell and Holmes are giving one another.

“Yes, alright, lets get started before the case grows cold.”

\----

The two men in the room with Gregson should have a detail of at least six, and despite the care they’d probably taken to get here in secret, it likely won’t be long before photographers start collecting outside the department. They sit quietly in the chairs in front of the conference table, when Joan, Sherlock and Bell enter, neither of them bother to stand. The styrofoam cups of tea in front of them remain untouched.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Joan doesn’t bother attempting to shake their hands, just reading their tired faces tells her they’re in no mood for pleasantries.

“What happened on the night your lover was abducted?” The two men take a moment to look at one another, communicating through the slightest of gestures that Joan has difficulty reading, but knows that Sherlock is keeping careful track of. 

“Zayn’s never been comfortable with the crowds that the rest of us collect,” The man on the right, Louis Tomlinson, begins, his face tight. “He’s always needed some space to recharge his batteries and get some alone time. To help him, we bought out a small flat near Cooper Union for him to practice his art and get some alone time. In order to keep his location private, we usually send a private car. Obviously Zayn’s free to travel between the college where he’s made a couple of friends, but we don’t track his whereabouts,” Louis looks towards the other man in the room, Liam, and Joan watches as Liam reaches up and strokes his chin, pinching his bottom lip.

“Sometimes Zayn stays over at the flat, he’ll usually text us if he is, but it’s not weird if he forgets because he’s gotten consumed in a project. We went to bed last night with no text, and when he wasn’t back by morning the next day we started to worry. He’s late when the car goes to pick him up, but he usually gets there. When he never showed up, I thought we should go out and have a look for him,” Liam leans forward and takes a sip of the tea, grimacing before setting the tea-cup back down. 

“So we all head to his flat, and when we get inside, we see someone’s poured wine all over the place. Literally nothing is left uncovered by wine. We all have a chuckle thinking Zayn’s probably having a laugh at us, he’s a bit of a prankster, but when he goes another night without showing up, we phoned the police,” Liam’s mouth is tight.

“Harry’s still devastated that he thought Zayn was being cheeky, but we all thought the same thing,”

“Did Zayn have anyone that he was seeing regularly or who might have a grudge against him?” Bell’s got a folder open and is ready to take notes.

“He talked a lot about a professor he was regularly seeing… A professor Sivens?” Bell looks up at Joan and Sherlock, indicating he’d go and talk to the man.

“One of the things we’re going to do is take a look through both your flat and the one you kept for Zayn. Is that going to be a problem at all?” Joan’s careful to keep her voice very neutral. Neither of these men had shown any indication of lying, but she’d double-check with Sherlock afterwards.

“That’s fine. Honestly we…” Liam takes a moment to choke down his emotion, his adam’s apple bobbing.

“We just really want Zayn back. What we have is a bit bonkers but he’s really really important to us,” Joan notices he’s gripping Louis’ hand.

“We’ll do everything we can, Liam,”


	2. Merlot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn's discovery of his new place in the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cleaned up some of the most egregious plot errors in Chapter one, couldn't get this out yesterday so it's out today, I'm wondering if I'm actually going to get to OT5 action or not.

He’s warm when he wakes up,his head spinning as he attempts to get his bearings. There’s a blindfold tied tightly over his eyes, but he’s submerged in water up to his chest. 

A hand touches his shoulder and he flails, stopping when a voice makes soft soothing noises and the hand reaches up to gently wrap around his shoulders. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay. Just don’t move,” the hand slips down past his collar bone and splays across his ribs.

“You’re going to be a bit confused, the drugs do that, I’m so sorry about this. Hold on,” a hand dips intimately between his legs as a sponge slowly starts to get him clean. He wants his body to tense up and thrash, but his limbs are liquid sand. 

The woman washing him hums as she slowly cleans him up. He has no idea what she’s cleaning him up for, just wishes that he could remember how he got here. Wishes he could be in bed with the four men who had whisked him off in a whirlwind romance that was now two years running. 

“Who’re you…” the words run long, his tongue and lips unable to coordinate. 

“I’m Jenny and I’m so sorry you’re here,” Her strokes have moved down to his feet, clinically scrubbing away whatever there. Zayn seems to remember taking a shower before he left his lovers’ flat… But that’s fuzzy, maybe he didn’t.

Jenny smells like yeast and hand sanitizer. 

“Where’m I,” he nearly slips down in the bathtub when she raises a leg to get behind his knee, but with a bit of flailing she catches him. 

“I wish you could tell me. I have no idea where we are,” the rag stops as Jenny gently tips Zayn forward to get at his back.

“I’ve been here six months. Locked up with all the windows boarded up there isn’t much to see. Sometimes I hear cars going by, but it’s faint,” there’s a tremor of fear in her voice, and Zayn can feel the drugs slowly leaving his system as his heart tries to switch into flight mode. 

“Why’re you here?” Jenny huffs a laugh, keeping a careful hold of Zayn as she rinses soap off of him. Zayn’s never understood baths as a method of getting clean, but the water is hot and Jenny is reassuring. He’s trying not to panic.

“I was on a date but the date turned out to be a sociopathic bastard. I’ve kinda been trapped here in this horror house ever since.” She clears her throat.

“Let’s get you out of there, love,” her hands feel frail, but she can left Zayn high enough to have him on the edge of the tub. 

“Don’t fall off,” Zayn hears her move away, clenching his hands around the tub as he tries to stay upright.

“There’s a love,” Jenny tucks a towel around his head as she ruffles his hair dry, making sure to dry off limbs carefully so she can keep Zayn sitting up.

“You’re strong…”

“I was a nurse before I ended up here. Can you get up doll?” it’s a careful dance as they manage to maneuver a blindfolded Zayn through a house that smells of freshly baked bread and yeast.

“Smells like dough…” Jenny lets out a chuckle as they eke through another doorway.

“Our precious captor is big on breadmaking, I’m surprised you’re not more overwhelmed by the smell. A lot of people hate it,”

“S’okay… can I sleep now?” He’s lowered onto a springy surface, a bed of some kind.

“Yeah love, let me tuck you in” She lays him down and flops his legs into the bed, pulling the covers up around him,

“Sleep tight, I don’t know what’s gonna’ happen when you wake-up,”

\---

The morgue is it’s usual cool temperature as Joan carefully goes over the body they’d pulled from a dumpster around some apartments on Columbus and W 97th.

“So we know that despite the torture that the bodies go through before they’re dumped, whoever is working with them is apparently skilled enough to remove half the internal organs before killing them,” Joan is looking over the case file again, focusing on the list of organs that hadn’t been found in the victim's body. Sherlock hadn’t needed to fill Joan in on how exactly black market organs were acquired, but his descriptions hadn’t pulled any punches. 

“Bell clearly avoided discussing the nature of the case with Misters Tomlinson and Payne in the room. It would have been excellent, however, if he might have given us a heads up about previous bodies also missing valuable organs. Suffice to say, however, we now have a killer with close connections to the black market,” Holmes is humming and hawing over some of the stitches that are neatly keeping their corpse together.

“That still doesn’t explain motive. I mean, all the past victims have been people with no family here, no finances, nothing that would mark them as an important person on the police radar, why suddenly go for a man in a high profile polyamorous relationship?” Joan’s prodding at some of the bruising she sees around the shoulder region, delineated as “post-mortem bruising, high-impact hit” by the pathologist. 

“It’s just another question to answer, however we at least know that we need to get in contact with someone who might have an idea about where organ harvesting is best investigated,”

“We also need to check up on Bell to see if he got anything off the prof Sivens that Zayn was close with,” Sherlock’s already stripping off his gloves and reaching for his jacket.

“I’ve had more than enough time to look over the body, we’ll also have to have a nice chat with the two men who weren’t here for a nice visit,”

“We also need to get something to eat.” Sherlock’s shoulders hunch a bit, but he doesn’t argue with Joan. The walk out of the morgue and into the rest of the station.


	3. Chardonnay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joan and Sherlock make a stop at the boy's apartment for more clues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sick lately so it's taken a bit but here's the next chapter! This is for autopsyofwebs as well because I love her.

The penthouse that the five men keep is located on E 77th, the Mark Hotel, and faces Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Worth a small sum of 9 million, we’ll see whether there’s anything of interest, although I have my doubts,” Sherlock breezes right past the doormen, who seem about to stop them when one of the ladies at the concierge desk makes a motion with her hand. By the time Joan and Sherlock make it up to the desk, she’s already speaking with someone on the other end of the phone. 

“Yes of course Mr. Horan. We’ll send them right up,” she hangs up the phone and gestures for Joan and Sherlock to follow her. 

“I’m just going to be escorting you up to the penthouse Mr.Holmes, Ms. Watson, Mr. Horan and Mr. Styles will be waiting for you up there,” she makes a neat turn, and begins walking towards the elevator bank on the other side of the lobby. 

Joan leans over to Sherlock.

“Just so we’re on the same page, the likeliness of any of these men having black market connections is zero, but that there’s a possibility that one of them have made an enemy?”

“We can’t be certain of course, but my suspicions of any of the men being responsible for this are very low. Of course we can’t rule anyone out,” as soon as the two of them step into the elevator, they fall silent. The concierge is quiet as she brings out a key, turning it roughly in the slot and pressing the button for the penthouse floor. 

“Ms. Jones, is it safe to say that all of the people at the concierge desk have access to the penthouse floor?” the woman jumps a bit, expecting to be ignored by the two investigators looking into the recent kidnapping of the Marks most affluent residents.

“There’s only two keys, one for the concierge desk, and one for kitchen and maintenance staff. Everyone else needs to either be escorted upstairs, or have one of our residents come down and bring them up,” Sherlock makes a satisfied noise and the elevator door dings open. 

“And this is where I leave you. Mr Styles or Mr. Horan will take you from here, however if you require anything we are a phone call away,” she makes a neat bow with her head and the elevator doors slide shut.  
“Do you think that there’s a possibility that a key went missing prior to the kidnapping?” The door on the right is open leading to a large room with a set of stairs. There’s comfortable looking chairs and paintings all over the walls. There’s no wear on anything though, so it’s clear that the room is merely for show.

“Hello?” 

“Perhaps not missing, but there may be someone in the hotel worth investigating. This may be where our crime began,” 

“We’re in here!” Comes a deep voice, but it echoes through the room and Joan loses where it started from. Down the hall, a head appears from around a corner.

“Sorry, we’re in the kitchen, don’t worry about your shoes,” his eyes are puffy and red, luminous in his face underneath a tumble of brown curls and waves. He disappears behind the wall again.

The hallway is long, and on the left is a stunning library crammed full of books, a stunning gold baby grand, and a beautiful couch that looks comfortable enough to sleep on. 

It feels empty. 

The kitchen itself is stunning, made for someone who cooks, a pot of tea and a plate of tea biscuits that are nearly half gone seated on a beautiful table between the two haggard looking men they’re meant to be speaking with.

“Mr. Horan and Styles? I’m Joan Watson and this is Sherlock Holmes. Is it alright to ask you a few questions?” They’re waved over and Mr. Styles stands to pull Joan’s chair out, Mr. Horan is pouring them cups of tea already and nudging the plate of cookies in their direction. 

“Just Harry’s fine. We don’t need to be formal about this at all… Ask whatever you need to,” both men have settled back into their chairs, shoulders touching and hands brushing whenever they reach for cookies.

“We asked your partners about any new people in Zayn’s life that may have any reason to harm him or who would have access to him. Is there anyone you can think of?”

“Ummm… The closest person to a new friend that Zayn’s made is a man named Edward Sivens who works as a prof at the Union. He’s been a big help with Zayn’s new art projects and has ended up as one of Zayn’s closest friend’s in that area of the city,” Harry takes a sip of tea.  
“We’d all met him a couple’a times. Mostly for drinks, but it’s hard to get a hold of the guy. Zayn’s been the best way, otherwise he’s always pretty busy.”

“He’s nice though. We’re pretty sure he’s got a massive crush on Zayn though ‘cause he’s always got a cookie or pastry for him when they meet,”

“Have you any reason to believe that the concierge may have lost the key to your flat within the past few weeks?” Sherlock had taken a brief sip of his tea, but Joan notes that he hasn’t touched it since. 

“Not that I can think of? We’ve all been pretty busy the past few weeks, so if they had, I don’t think I would have noticed?” Harry turns to Niall, who nods in agreement. 

“Nothing missing in the flat, no one new hanging about?” shaking heads.

“Well if you don’t mind, could we get a brief tour of the house?”

\---

The tour is as brief as the two men can make it, considering the size of the penthouse, but by the end of it, Joan isn’t sure they’ve seen anything that could help the case. There’s no security cameras either in or around the apartment, and while they get a promise from Harry and Niall that any lobby footage they can secure they’ll send along, they’re still back at square one. 

“The only problem is their alibis are with one another, and if there was anything that could have happened they would have been able to support each other with it. Although they did say that they phoned downstairs for room service. We can’t know until we’ve secured some answers about that,” Sherlock looks both annoyed and pensive.

“Are you still thinking about the key?” They’re making the walk to Zayn Malik’s apartment. Joan had groaned internally about making the hour long walk in her small heels, but had managed to bargain a quick stop for lunch out of Sherlock. 

“It seems too simple to think that someone might have stolen a key in order to snoop around, but in this case it doesn’t seem impossible. Someone who had a rush for risk-taking and required information about their next victim, but at the same time they’ve been so diligent about ensuring the victims are well-drugged before making any moves,” He hasn’t touched the sandwich Joan had made him get at the small bakery they’d stopped in. Had spent the majority of the time quietly complaining about the off-scent of the yeast.  
“Do you think they used it to find a trophy?” Joan’s sandwich is delicious, with soft homemade mozzarella, cut through with acidic tomato and balsamic vinegar, the bread is soft and warm.

“Possibly…” Joan throws the bag her sandwich came in a trash can.

“We’ll see what the other apartment has to say, the key might be a dead end. Eat your sandwich,” Sherlock gives her a grumpy look before tearing into the sandwich, moodily chewing it.


End file.
